How to Plan a Gay Holiday

Whether you are just out of the closet or have been openly gay your entire life, one thing that gets tricky for everyone is how to plan a gay vacation that meets your needs. Although gay travel and straight travel are very similar, there are a few things that you need to think about before you look at booking your next trip. With a huge variety of gay vacations out there, it is important to find one that meets your needs. You could be traveling to relax or because you want to party and be surrounded by thousands of other gay people. If you ask yourself the following questions you can more easily plan the perfect gay vacation that not only meets your traveling needs, but so that there are also no surprises when you get there.

What are you looking to get out of your gay vacation?

The first question you need to ask yourself is what are you looking for? If you want to relax , you may want to look at which cities have gay friendly beaches and where the gay neighborhoods are in the city you may want to visit. You will then want to find a local gay events calendar for that particular city and either schedule during their pride festivals or circuit parties or purposely plan for the following week as the city will be a ghost town. During pride and during large events like Gay Days in Florida or Orgullo in Madrid, the cities are packed and the hotels are swamped with gay people ready to party. By either planning ahead or by planning for the following weeks you can rest assured that you will find a large fun crowd, or a peaceful relaxing and quiet trip.

Find a map for the local gay neighborhood.

If you enjoy supporting local gay restaurants and shops, you will want to find a map online of where the gay section of the city is. By knowing where the stores and restaurants that you want to shop at are, you can then go on sites like Venere.com and find the hotels that are around that area. By staying in that area you not only run a better chance of finding a gay friendly staff, but you won’t have to worry about taking a cab or trying to explain that you are looking for a gay bar in a foreign language. Not to mention you’ll be able to walk home if you decide to go out at night.

Plan your nights out ahead of time.

There is nothing worse than getting to your hotel and heading to the first bar or club only to find out its dead. Whats even worse than no one being at the clubs is trying to find out where a gay bar is if you forgot to look them up before you leave for your vacation. Before I travel I always look for a local gay bar guide and then look to see what themes they have each night and I plan my nights out based on what interests me. I then put them into my iPhone and always include a back up bar or club in case the first one ends up not turning out to be like I thought it would. You’ll also want to keep the address and phone number in your phone just in case you get lost or you need to ask for directions and cannot pronounce the street names.

Booking your hotel and making sure it is gay friendly.

There is nothing worse than showing up to the hotel only to find out that the staff is not gay friendly. This is even worse if you are on your first vacation with a new lover. Whats nice about booking on sites like Venere.com is that you are able to call the number for the hotel before you book and ask them directly, “Are you gay friendly?” “Do you have gay visitors often?” “Is your staff trained to deal with gay people?”. This may sound like a strange thing to do but if you and your partner show up to your hotel and have the hotel staff stare or make comments. What’s even worse is if they refuse you service or treat you like you are less than them because you are gay or with your partner. By getting informed first and asking these questions you can be more certain that there will not be any issues or awkward moments during your stay with that hotel.

Have fun!

The most important part of your gay vacation is to have fun. Even if you aren’t the type of person who likes to plan, try to make sure that there is at least something going on in that city or town that meets your needs. It can be a gay fishing trip or a gay circuit party. Whatever it is that you are looking for to relax and enjoy your vacation you can find by doing a little bit of research before you leave. The important thing is to make sure that your gay vacation will meet your needs so that you can have fun.

When planning a gay vacation, the only things you really need to remember are to figure out if you want quiet or noise, where the local gay area is so that you can stay by it. You can look up a local gay guide to find out what is hot or what is fun for you while you are there and you should remember to call the hotel ahead of time to make sure that they are gay friendly so you don’t have any issues with where you are staying. If you do these simple things you’ll find that your gay vacation is not only one that you were hoping for, but one that you will have fun on and remember.

Share this article:

About the author

Adam Riemer is a Blogger and writer for many sites including a leading site for Gay Weddings and for Broadway Reviews. His passion is traveling the world and discovering new gay destinations and fabulous gay friendly places to eat and play. Having been on everything from cruises to land based resorts and gay beaches, he is sure to have an idea to help you plan your perfect gay vacation.